Steele Street
by Tara Janzen
Book #9: Loose and Easy | Rating:  3.5 Stars
Book #10: Breaking Loose | Rating:  3.5 Stars
Book #11: Loose Ends | Rating:  4.0 Stars

Overall Average Rating for Loose arc (including books #7 & #8):  3.6 Stars



See Also Previously Reviewed:  The Mission / Crazy arc

• Book #1: Crazy Hot | Rating:  3.0 Stars
• Book #2: Crazy Cool | Rating:  4.0 Stars

See Also: December 2015 Packaged Review // includes short reviews for:

• Book #3: Crazy Wild | Rating:  4.0 Stars
• Book #4: Crazy Kisses | Rating:  3.5 Stars
• Book #5: Crazy Love | Rating:  4.0 Stars
• Book #6: Crazy Sweet | Rating:  3.5 Stars

Overall Average Rating for Crazy arc:  3.66 Stars >>> 3.7 Stars

See Also Previously Reviewed:  Loose arc

• Book #7:  On the Loose | Rating:  3.5 Stars
• Book #8:  Cutting Loose | Rating:  3.5 Stars

Overall Series Average Rating:  3.63 Stars >>> 3.6 Stars


These last three Steele Street books tied together a specific story arc that was introduced in secretive bits and pieces from Loose and Easy, and starts to build up into the big conclusion, bridging through Breaking Loose, and concluding with Loose Ends.  It also ties together a few other connections that we saw from Crazy Love and Crazy Sweet, with the addition of Gillian Pentycote as Red Dog into the elite SDF team--involving superhuman enhancing, experimental pharmaceuticals that we get to see more about throughout Breaking Loose.

While the few books from the beginning had always hit me as not quite having an outline, but being absurdly enjoyable, I found it a surprise that, now that we got a more directional story line, with the Loose part of the series... the books weren't exactly as much fun, even if still highly entertaining.

Still, the enjoyability (and my rating) of this series had always remained in the 3.0 Stars or higher, even if none of the books ever made it all the way up to "Awesome-sauce!"  Although, if I were to give the series a personal overall rating without averages, I'd definitely place it in the "I really, really liked it a lot!" of a 4.0 Star value.

Because with the ending of the eleventh and last installment of Steele Street, as well as a fairly well-rounded conclusion and reunion, I'm feeling the residual effects of what may be a mild Book Hangover, which tells me that I will truly miss reading about the Steele Street boys and girls; the witty and nonsensical fun, the absurdity and craziness of the excitement, and the easy lovability of all the characters--even the ones who keep butting into the main book couple's story line.


On a side note:

One of the things that probably bugged me the most about these last five Steele Street books had to be the tendency for the main male characters (and a few other male characters) to treat some of our female characters like they are ignorant, naive little girls, when in actuality, all of the women in these books had more information than the men did, and are all kickass enough to stand on their own.  The biggest redeeming factor, probably was that the men quickly learned that they needed to stop underestimating the women and start getting their information right before jumping to conclusions.

Case in point, this little bit from the tenth book, Breaking Loose:

She glanced over at him, the receiver to her ear, and he was giving her "the look," the look men gave women who they thought needed a little help in their decisions-making process.

It took an effort of will not to roll her eyes, but she managed.

"All those guys I dated from Steele Street?" she said.  "They made sure I could take care of myself.  Don't worry, Mr. Killian, I can get myself home."

To be fair, Suzi Toussi had started puting on a damsel act, like she was a bit ignorant of her situation, so she could get him off her back.  But he started it by jumping to the conclusion about her ignorance by throwing facts at her about the dangerous streets of Ciudad del Este... facts and information she already knew, thank you very much.

But otherwise, the rest of the books were readily enjoyable, with explosive action, and hot, steamy, sexy romancing!  This is a series I'd definitely recommend to anyone who wants a light, easy, breezy set of action-packed romances, filled with sweet love stories (sort of), and steamy sex.  Sure, for a time there we had also gotten some deeper, heavier material; but it all kind of got overshadowed by the writing's comedic tone, all the explosions and gunfire, the destruction of a fun house fortress, and all the hot sex.

But who's complaining, really?

Johnny Ramos was one of those side characters in previous books who didn't really stand out--who you saw as that awkward kid who wanted to play with the big boys.  And so I find it kind of nice that he's all grown up now and really, truly joining the big boys in all their badass badness.

The book starts out with a bang and kind of ends with a bang as well, with the progression moving forward at an ungodly pace... except that, much like the previous book, everything sort of takes place within the time frame of twenty-four hours, give or take.  And everything was actually as exciting as hell, even though, once again, I wasn't entirely sure the book was progressing until about 50% into the story and I realized that the plot has been moving forward and I hadn't noticed.

Anyway, Johnny and Esme make a great team, though I had a few "doh" moments when Esme pulled some flinch-worthy moves that made her seem less than competent, especially after making her out to seem entirely competent.  Which, to be totally honest, she is completely kickass and competent; I'm just not sure I buy that she'd been a bit careless here and there, unless we just want to blame it on inexperience since she's supposed to be rather young.

Or... the other, more plausible reason to make a kickass heroine stumble in an out of character way: so that the kickass hero can swoop in and save the day.

The cliches--it burns my eyes.

And I couldn't help but notice that our big bad main villain just kept digging himself into a bigger ditch, which probably wouldn't have been dug in the first place if he'd have just backed off and let Esme do what needed to be done.  Then again, it wasn't like he expected her to be the one to fix all of her father's problems and come through with money, the egotistical male chauvinist that he was.  Because apparently the last thing anyone ever wanted to do was underestimate Esme Alexandria Alden; but that's exactly what everyone kept doing... well, everyone except for her cousin Dax, of course.

The only thing that really bugged me at all was how stubborn Esme had been at the beginning; even after Johnny saves her life twice, she's still unwilling to budge on any information at all.  And in doing so, manages to delay a lot of things that needed to be done.  And it wasn't really like her mission was that big of a top secret deal anyway... I think.

Johnny was great; like all the other typical alpha males of this series.  But that's about it, really.

I liked the introduction of Dax Killian and kind of look forward to the next book because of him.

Anyway, this was another fun and exciting rush through of another Steele Street operator...

And, oh, the plot thickens, because we've got some shady, government stuff going on in the background that ties in with the last couple books.  This will be a fun ride!

Part of my thoughts about this book is at the beginning of this review.  And the truth is, there really isn't all that much left to say about these books that I didn't already say before.  Steele Street is an entertaining, highly exciting, and crazily enjoyable series, with story lines that border on absurd.  But the humor and the wit is winning, and the characters are very easy to love.

Breaking Loose, especially, had a premise that I was very interested in--the recovery of an Egyptian artifact--and a character I've been looking forward to seeing in front-line action: Dax Killian.  I was interested in Dax the moment he was introduced in the previous book.  Of course, he was sort of already front-line action, because our author can't just focus on one couple of characters, she has to introduce several others, and let them stay for at least 50% of the story.  Not that I'm complaining or anything, but sometimes you want to focus on the story (if there is even a story) and the main couple.

Anyway, while I was very much anticipating Dax Killian's appearance, I found myself very impressed with Suzi Toussi's role in this book.  She's pretty kickass for a woman who's not quite up to the kickass standards of Baby Bang or Red Dog.  But Suzi is kickass in her own way, utilizing her wits, her resources, and her personal charisma to get her mission done.  Meanwhile, Dax kind of came off as a bit of a caveman jerk--and yes, I know he saved her a few times, but his entire "I'm here to save my woman" spiel, when A) Suzi was not his woman, and B) chauvinistic jerk doesn't even know the entire story, got a little irritating.

I swear, it felt like there was at least one or two scenes where he butted in, thinking that he was going to play hero, when in reality he actually interfered with Suzi's intelligence recon.  Not that anyone mentions it, and nor does Suzi get pissed or point it out to him.  After all, he's a good looking man with a protective streak who's just trying to "save his woman."  So, obviously, we forgive him... -_-

Breaking Loose was entertaining, and it also picks up on the background conflicts that started since the end of the fifth Steele Street book, wherein superhuman producing drugs are in play, and a lot of government secrets are being thrown around.  And then there's the thing about a mysterious mission that comes into the limelight with this book, having been introduced from the previous book, and will obviously conclude in the next, and last book of the Steele Street series.

Surprisingly, despite all the chaotic mess that was the concluding Steele Street book, I found Loose Ends probably my favorite of the last five-book series set.  I'm not entirely certain I know why, but it might have to do with the fact that this book moved so fast and so many things happened that I didn't even really have time to think about anything I DIDN'T like about it.  Or maybe, I just let myself stop looking for anything I didn't like about it.

Or maybe this was the first book in the Loose set of the series that didn't have our main hero underestimating our main heroine.  Probably because Con (or J.T.) didn't really get a chance to think about underestimating Jane, since their "Meet Cute" was pretty brief and then they were on the run.  And probably also because, even as a tough girl who grew up around hard times as a street rat, Jane isn't exactly the kickass black ops operator from Steele Street like some of the other heroines in these last five books.

Which brings me to why I really liked Jane so much:  She's just an ordinary girl--as ordinary as you can get for a girl who had to live the hard life as a street rat, learning to be the best at picking pockets, grabbing what she can grab, and then escaping on light feet with other's none the wiser.  And then she left that life and tried to start a more normal one as the assistant manager of an art gallery.

Really, there was no over-the-top black ops stuff for her... at least not until J.T. crashes back into her life.

And J.T.?  He was a great character infused with all the emotional turmoil and suffering that someone with his circumstances and history would have.  But even as we follow him throughout the book, you don't get much of a chance to dwell on the darker aspects of his life, as the guy trudges forward like a warrior, doing what he can to complete his last, self-assigned mission before his time runs out.

Truth be told, Loose Ends was a pretty epic and explosive conclusion; truly, everything wrapped up with a nice big bang.

And despite all the scattered mess that was the outline of Loose Ends--the separate, seemingly tangential story lines, with everyone running wild, with a different version of the big picture, all moving forward to converge into one giant collision of a resolution--I really, really found the entire journey quite well executed.  (Last minute, left-field villain notwithstanding.)

One thing I DO wish we could have seen was more of Red Dog, because I feel like she should have had more than a brief hand in the overall conclusion, considering what she'd gone through because of that ongoing background story line of superhuman enhancement pharmaceuticals.  And poor Kid seemed almost nonexistent with only a few lines of dialogue here and there... though I suspect that was purposeful since I'd be hard pressed to know how Kid would be able to have much dialogue with his brother's life on the line.


***

Some Final Thoughts:

I suppose the only other thing I can think of to say about Steele Street is that, if ever there were audio versions created, this would be a series I wouldn't mind "re-reading."  It's a lot of fun, this super crazy, absurdly enjoyable series with the guns and the cars and the hotness level.

Definitely going to have that mild Book Hangover now.

Cutting Loose
by Tara Janzen
Book 8 of Steele Street

Cutting Loose still didn't feel like the reason why I ended up loving these Steele Street books, but it DID get right back into the heart of it's absurdly entertaining factor.  There are guns, there are cars, and there's the hot and steamy sex... of which our couple seems to manage over a very long period of time.  Whew!  There's high speed chase from danger, but no gun fights or explosions.

And it wasn't until nearing the end of the book that I realized that the entire setting of this 400 page book takes place over the time frame of one day.  Only the first couple and last couple chapters are not part of the one day.  And so that's when I felt a slightly bit more impressed--because for a book that manages to drag out an entire day of cat and mouse chase between several players, the progression actually flew by pretty quickly.

I hadn't even been aware that things were happening, because I kept thinking that we weren't in the middle of the conflict yet... and yet we technically were.  If that makes any sense.

These books don't make any sense.

So this review probably doesn't make any sense either.

Anyway...

While Lily and Zach were interesting characters, this wouldn't be the first time in this series where we didn't get enough of a chance to get to know the main couple.  And so, while you learn a few things about them as the story progresses, we really barely skim the surface of these two character's biographies.  Even Lily barely knows who Zach is until the end of the book.  The two of them are running from danger together, with secrets as the giant pink elephant in the backseat of Zach's Shelby Cobra Mustang.

And yet, somehow, they managed to make this partnership work.  Somehow, they develop a rather believable romance, even if most of it is based off of lust and adrenaline.  Somehow, I found the two of them rather intriguing.

Meanwhile, we get to meet previous characters, which I love doing, because usually I end up loving previous books' main characters as side characters.  They tend to be much more fun when they aren't center stage, ya know.  Unfortunately, like some of the previous books in this series, you also get introduced to a random secondary couple who kind of also manages to hog some book time along with other side characters... and you'd rather just get back to the main couple and learn more about them.

Entertaining book.  Lots of potential.  Lots of crazy.


***

Free Friday #7:

Page Count:  405
Cash Award:  +$10.00

Updated Bank Balance:  $268.00

On the Loose
by Tara Janzen
Book 7 of Steele Street

Not a whole lot to say about On the Loose except that it was just as absurdly entertaining as the previous six books in this series.  I'm glad I jumped back into Steele Street.

The difference between this book and the previous books, however, is that there really was a semblance of a plot, even if I'm still not sure what it was.  There was a direction, a conflict, a story, and a strange little romance with two people who didn't really make sense in real life.

But I'll be damned if I didn't really admire and enjoy the presence of Honoria York-Lytton.  This girl has all the public, stereotyped makings of a bimbo socialite; but who turns out to be much more intelligent, and much more insightful than anyone gives her credit for.  With the name "Honey" and her consistent appearances in the society pages that splash her around as just another Paris Hilton-type, no one would ever take a second glance at her and think that she's capable of so much more than partying, spending money, and setting fashion trends.

As C. Smith Rydell had put it, it takes a lot of forethought and guts just to pull all the adventure she ends up pulling, both in this current story line as well as the previous book's story line.  Little bits of pieces of her actions and behavior really DOES contradict her pampered, Park Avenue Princess image, and I loved that it gave us a better insight of this girl than even I had gotten from the introduction of her in the previous book.

This woman doesn't make any sense on a societal level, but in some ways, it's kind of nice that she doesn't make any sense.  If any of my opinions make any sense...

As for our hero, Smith... I suppose he's just your typical military hero with the penchant for neanderthal-like behavior.  I liked him enough, but not enough to wax poetic about him.

Meanwhile, the drug lord, Alejandro Campos, was a lot more interesting to follow--which I'm glad about, since he'll be our next hero in the next book, along with Lily Robbins, the school teacher who decided to take a sabbatical and ended up running for her life and then into Campos's life.

That will be an interesting pairing.

Overall, On the Loose is a book that can be quite enjoyable, exciting, and entertaining if you don't give it too much thought.  Truth be told, it DID drag for a good while, especially whenever we hopped back and forth outside of Rydell and Honey's story tangent--there might have been entirely too much going on in this book.

But it was a fun time, so I'm not complaining.

On a side note, there was a lot less about cars and guns in this book than there has been present among previous books.  Though I suppose it's a little hard to talk shop about cars or guns when our main couple are in the middle of espionage.


***

Roll #32:  Luxury Tax says:  "Read a book where someone gets married, with jewelry on the cover, or where any character is a millionaire/billionaire!"

The heroine is a wealthy socialite, millionaire heiress.

Page Count:  403
Cash Award:  +$15.00

Updated Bank Balance:  $254.00

One of my resolutions as a blogger/reader is to review as many books as I can, if only because I enjoy doing so.  But like any other blogger out there, sometimes you just can't think of anything to say outside the scope of:  "I really liked this book.  It was awesome!"  or "I didn't much care for this book.  It was kind of boring!"  or "This book was just... *shrugs*".

There are a lot of books I had always meant to review the entire time during the reading process, but just never got around to doing so for one reason or another.

And so I decided to try what a lot of other bloggers will sometimes do:  Make a simple, one time post for the sole reason of giving extremely short and generic opinions of a bunch of books, whether I liked them or not.  (Knowing me, I'll probably end up getting carried away resulting in enough paragraphs to present a full review anyway, though, so my apologies in advance.)

In making this decision, I realized that there are several other books I had never meant to review that I wouldn't mind giving a shout-out about in this post.

The following books are in no particular order, though they may be organized in a fashion that makes sense only to me.  If I wanted to be logical about it, I would probably just list all the books in order by the author's last name or in the order of which I read them this year... but whatevs.

Career of Evil (Cormoran Strike #3) by Robert Galbraith (aka Queen Rowling)

-- 3.5 Stars

This book started out very slow.  As per usual, the writing is excellent and the characters are excellent.  But the book started out very slow.  I might have fallen asleep at some point, but, as is with every other book I may have fallen asleep reading, it could just be my own lack of healthy sleep cycles that's the problem.

But the book still started out very slow.  The flashbacks and the sudden inclusion of character histories to help propel the rest of the main story line (because I understand that that's why all of that was included), DID manage to elicit some wavering attention on my behalf.

But then all the set-up is taken care of and we dive into the rest of the book and it starts getting excellent.  Except, then I realize that this book is still trudging along with mostly set-up and side tangents and other such nonsense that barely focuses on the murder plot.

Career of Evil isn't a bad book, don't get me wrong.  And it's far from boring or uninspiring.  HOWEVER, it is definitely a step down from its predecessor, The Silkworm.  And that makes me sad, because I had hoped that, even if Career of Evil could not surpass The Silkworm's genius, it would at least still be an excellent work by Queen Rowling.

It kept me hooked, if only because of the character interaction and growing relation between Strike and Robin.  But it also bothered me because of a lot of side details and backstories that we probably could have done without.  And then Robin is given a downgrade in her character development when a much unnecessary cliched plot device is used to color her character's past.

This book could have been brilliant like The Silkworm.  But it was merely good and serviceable without the brilliance I'd hoped for it.  Did I mention it started out really slow?

by Tara Janzen

Steele Street books

#3) Crazy Wild -- 4.0 Stars

#4) Crazy Kisses -- 3.5 Stars

#5) Crazy Love -- 4.0 Stars

#6) Crazy Sweet -- 3.5 Stars

As far as the Steele Street books go, they involve the same formulaic story line with each and every book I've read.  There's a lot of haphazard narration that switches from one set of characters to another, a big military mission going on in the background, one crime thriller conspiracy going on in the foreground, lots of talk about cars and fixing up cars, lots of talk about sex, and lots of talk about the Steele Street guys and their strange quirks.

All packaged together, it's hard to grasp or follow if you're looking for anything inspirational or substantial.

But there is no doubt that I somehow manage to really, really enjoy reading these books if only because they are so much crazy fun that I don't care about substance or logic or any other kind of realism.  There's an underlying comedic tone to these books that make them extremely enjoyable.

Crazy Wild... it was interesting.  I much preferred the sexy, steamy romantic sexcapades of Creed and Cody (in comparison with Crazy Kisses' Kid/Nikki pairing)--as per usual, there's an amusing undertone of humor between these two and their developing relationship that just makes it fun to follow. 

Crazy Kisses didn't exactly turn out the way I'd wanted it to, but I still found some kind of entertainment with it.  I had looked forward to Crazy Kisses because of the ongoing Kid/Nikki, on-again-off-again romance that has been teasing us since the first book... but it felt slightly lackluster when it finally came around.

Crazy Love brings us to the long awaited Dylan Hart and Skeeter Bang romance.  It wasn't as exciting as I had hoped it would be, considering the build-up to their romance since two books previous, but it still delivered in the nonsensical quips, the strange, comedic atmosphere, and the action and the badass action.

Crazy Sweet rounds off the first part of the Steele Street series with the newest SDF member, Travis James, who has been present since the first book as Nikki McKinney's naked angel model for her artwork.  This guy has probably had a crush on every other girl introduced throughout these first six books, with his desires unfulfilled and lots of pent up frustration.  So it's his turn to have a romance now.

In Crazy Sweet, Travis's girlfriend/friends-with-benefits/lover/SDF-soul-mate-partner, Gillian Pentycote is on a revenge mission, and Travis is basically her keeper.  And really, not much actually happens in this book aside from the revenge mission and some sort of side mission featuring C. Smyth Rydell and a girl named Honey in El Salvador...

Really, all these books really suffer from is a case of haphazard "I don't know where this plot is going and I'm not even sure there's a main conflict in here".  Although all the craziness and the humor and the mindless fun and the hot sex more than makes up for the lack of direction in each book.  In the end, I realize I have so much fun reading these books that I don't care that I have no idea what's really going on.

by Paige Tyler

X-Ops books

#1) Her Perfect Mate -- 4.0 Stars

#2) Her Lone Wolf -- 4.0 Stars

I didn't expect much from Her Perfect Mate when I first decided to pick it up.  I had kind of subconsciously blown it off as a guilty pleasure romance read with erotica disguised as a military romantic suspense novel.  But I was pleasantly surprised by how much I ended up enjoying it, even in spite of some of the tacky dialogue and some of the weird content.

I didn't really have to suspend disbelief.  However, I DID have to overlook how quickly the "I love you"s came around and how readily our non-shifter human male was able to accept his cat-shifter female partner just because he had a thing for Catwoman.  It was a little incredible to believe that he wouldn't have freaked out first, but I got over that pretty quickly.

Still, my enjoyment of Her Perfect Mate lead to picking up Her Lone Wolf, and in this particular story line and instance, the suspension of disbelief was a little easier to grasp.  The romance was also a little more readily acceptable since the main couple had been lovers previously, before the timeline of the book.  The flashbacks were a little distracting, but they helped.

I will definitely try to pick up the next few books when they are made available, but I won't trip over myself trying to get a hold of them.  I DO like the brief background scenes of the ongoing major conflict that's propelling the series overall.  Lots to look forward to, that's for sure.

11 by Kylie Brant -- 4.0 Stars

Kylie Brant is one of my more favorite romantic suspense authors, if only because I really enjoyed what she did with the women of the Mindhunters series.  They were all competent, independent, skilled investigators who never really had to rely on a male partner at all times.  And also, Kylie Brant goes easy on the damsel-in-distress scenarios (except with her most recent, Secrets of the Dead... I'm still trying to figure that one out).

The point is: the heroines from Mindhunters typically kept themselves well out of trouble as their jobs dictated, and rushed into danger to save the day as their jobs dictated.  And they were always prepared to get themselves back out of danger if it came around to that.

When I discovered 11 as a new book listed under Kylie Brant's Amazon page, I got pretty excited and jumped on that one pretty quickly.  11 is set in the same world as the Mindhunters series, as we learn when Adam Raiker appears in the first (second?) chapter of the book.  But from that moment forward, it's kind of a book on its own and quite enjoyable at that.

The only unfortunate response I have, however, is that it's not very memorable.  You've got a P.I. and you've got a woman in hiding and you've got a resident baddie, psycho serial killer.  Action ensues, romance ensues, sex happens... and then Happily Ever After™.

And that's pretty much it.  After finishing the book, I barely had anything to say about 11 because there really wasn't anything to say about it.  I know I enjoyed it and gobbled it up like I would any other exciting romantic suspense.  But otherwise, I've got nothing.

by Rachel Hartman

Seraphina duology

#1) Seraphina -- 5.0 Stars

#2) Shadow Scale -- 4.5 Stars

Serephina was, hands down, one of the best high fantasies I had read back in 2013 (it was published in 2012).  Granted, this was back before I started making a thing of blogging my reviews more regularly, so I didn't subject the book to the same amount of note-taking and subconscious analysis that I do to books I read now.  However, I DO recall that I loved it so much that I immediately put the next book on my TBR... and then proceeded to wait forever... and then give a little whimper each time the release date for the second book got pushed back.

Seraphina had a lot going for it: a strong, unique, multi-layered heroine; a complex, intricately created world that interwove a dragon culture into it seamlessly; a sweet, subtle romance that had developed from a respectful admiration and friendship between two people; and a wonderfully narrated story with a rich, complicated conflict.  And characters, colorful, creative, unique, non-standard side characters and background characters and minor characters, all with their own multi-layered backgrounds lightly hinted out.

Rachel Hartman created a wonderful world and a wonderful story and a wonderful cast of characters for lovers of high fantasy.

This year, in preparation for the release of Shadow Scale at the beginning of the year, I wanted to re-read Seraphina.  Instead, I ended up buying the Audible and listening to it instead and once again found the experience a good one (with some minor drawbacks during those moments my attention might have drifted).  Seraphina was just as great as I had remembered it two years ago.

Then I finally picked up Shadow Scale.  And I devoured it.  While there was some questionable story progression flow and a conclusion that wasn't the most ideal, I still found the world of Seraphina wonderfully created.  We get to travel outside to the rest of the worlds and see the rest of the cultures only hinted at in the first book.  And on top of that, we get to continue following the same beloved characters as well as meet new characters.

The only issue I had with Shadow Scale, which made it a little less likable than Seraphina was that it had more moments of drag than the first book... and also the romantic resolution was just not what I had been expecting after all of that build-up between Seraphina and Kiggs.  Which was more disappointing than I like to admit, because I often don't like when a series dwells too much on romances... but Seraphina was never a story that based its happenings around a romance.  Instead, it serenaded us with the love story in the background, making sweet and beautiful little promises with the very subtle build-up between our main couple.

Color me shallow, but that had been enough to really damper my initial "I don't care about a lot of the flaws this book might have, I'm giving it a straight out 5 Star rating!"

Magonia (Magonia #1) by Maria Dahvana Headley -- 3.0 Stars

Really, Magonia was just a strange, strange book and I'm not even certain how I felt about it.  Even now I'm still not sure.  I read a review about it that carefully dissects the book into two separate story parts, wherein the first half is like typical, trendy "Sick Lit" and the second half is a weird paranormal high fantasy akin to something of the Castle in the Sky variety.

I'm inclined to agree.  Although I loved Castle in the Sky and thought that the fantasy part of Magonia wasn't really THAT much like it... or maybe it is.  I think I may have likened it to a Castle in the Sky doped up on an acid trip of some kind, what with the whimsical fantasy telling and all, but with more WTF-like strangeness than I could handle.

And now apparently the book is being formed into a series...

Do we really believe that's necessary?

Gimme Some Sugar (Pine Mountain #2) by Kimberly Kincaid -- 2.5 Stars

I've already said it once in my Turn Up the Heat review:  I liked the Line books by Kimberly Kincaid when I first picked up Love on the Line on a whim.  The food porn was pretty awesome and the romance was sweet and simple and had its moments of breezy.  The next two Line books were serviceable, even if not the best, because I was enjoying Kimberly Kincaid's humorous, easygoing writing style.

Turn Up the Heat was okay, but not the greatest contemporary romance in the world.  And then Gimme Some Sugar rolled around... and it was just... kind of... weird.  Don't get me wrong, it was cute and breezy in a way.  But the relationship and romantic development felt a little juvenile for an adult contemporary... and the repetitive "Feed her," thing was a little creepy.

And the main romantic conflict, when revealed, was just kind of... sad.

Whatever the case, Gimme Some Sugar just didn't seem to work for me, which ended up putting the Pine Mountain books squarely in my "I don't know if I'm going to continue reading this series" pile.  Though I may read one more book just to see where we go with it.

by Julie Garwood

Buchanan-Renard-MacKenna

#5) Slow Burn -- 4.0 Stars

#6) Shadow Dance -- 3.5 Stars

Julie Garwood's romantic suspense series seem to get better as each book progresses... and yet, in a way, they don't, really.  Enjoyable as they are, I can't help but notice that these past two books were a little less memorable than the previous two.  Although to be fair, even Murder List (book #4) wasn't quite memorable either.  Of the series, Killjoy (book #3) is my favorite--the character's stand out and I liked them.

Slow Burn was different from the other Buchanan-Renard-MacKenna installments in that the murder mystery remains a one-sided investigation throughout the book.  We honestly do not even get to see the main baddie at all and things remain a mystery up until the end--which is actually quite nice, because I could do without those trips through our mystery villain's twisted minds.

Of course, what stood out the most about Slow Burn was the beginning of the book in which a Wonderbra gets the most unique introduction I'd ever expected.  And, as usual, Julie Garwood's humor shines.

Shadow Dance is a little less entertaining if only because the narration seems to take a turn for the tedious.  There is entirely too much telling in this book and a lot of side mutterings by all the characters.  Of course, the typical Julie Garwood humor is still present, but the bantering between Jordan and Noah feels slightly more irritating than fun.

And, of course, I'm a bit disappointed, because, for some unknown reason, this is the installment I'd been reading my way towards.  Since the Buchanans are such a big law enforcement, badass family, I had been expecting Jordan Buchanan to be a badass law enforcement type as well, and if not, at least a badass female super woman of some sort.  I'm not even sure I know where I got that impression, really...

***

I might continue this feature every year if I can remember to do so.  Maybe it should also be another Bookish Resolution of mine.  We'll see.

With this, have a Merry Christmas everyone!  Hope every had a great year and will continue on to have another great one in 2016.

When her grandfather disappears, paleontologist Regan enlists bad boy Quinn in an adrenaline-charged rescue mission that ignites their deepest desires.